By: Mike Neis
I am somewhere near Highway 1. Or is it 9? I am at least close to my destination. Probably. My girlfriend threw me out a couple of hours ago. Now the fate of my evening depends on old friends in a rented beach house, but if that falls through, I will spend the night in my 1963 Dodge Dart. I am ready to fall back on my old college crowd. I am not ready to fall back any further.
While I split my attention between a torn map in the dark, roads with no signs and Amor Salsante on the radio, my car shudders, and then drifts—like a puck in an air hockey game. My stomach freezes and I know something is seriously wrong. I keep my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road. Then I figure out what is happening.
“¡Hijo de la chingada!”
I have run out of gas. Fortunately, I have enough momentum to pull up to a closed service station serendipitously positioned by the road. My three-on-the-tree gear stick clunks as I shift into park and the key eventually comes out of the ignition. I leave a note on the windshield explaining that I will return in the morning.
While guessing at my proximity to Crystal Beach, I consider the bass guitarrón strapped to the top of my car. It looks like a fat man mounted on a tiny donkey. When my girlfriend said, “And take that damn guitarrón with you!” she gave guitarrón a gringo pronunciation—and she is second generation, just like me.
I make a decision, grab my backpack and my guitarrón, lock my car and start walking. It is dark, muggy and desolate. The moon and occasional streetlights keep me on the road.
After twenty minutes or so, dots of orange light poke through the thickets of trees. My strides get smaller and my lungs stop pushing at my rib cage. It won’t be long before I reach the beach house that my old college roommates rent during the summer. With luck, they will still be there. With even more luck, they might welcome me. I haven’t exchanged insults with any of them in more than a year since our graduation in 1984.
I became pretty good at drinking with my roommates during school. We played games, penalized each other with shots, and listened to loud music. After tying a handkerchief around my face, I poked everyone with demands for dinero as beer spilled from the cup in my hands. That got me the nickname El Bandido.
Outside of the parties, I did not say much. My roommates postured over sports and politics, while greeting my own remarks about music and church with blank stares.
Very little is moving when I get to the street with the beach house. The surf whispers in the distance. A family of fat racoons waddles its way across a driveway. Then I find what I am seeking—a one-story house with a tiny yard and a screened porch in front. The house has no lights and no music, which is a bad sign. I know I am late for their beach week, so they have probably already left.
I had told my ex-roommates I could not make it this year. The ostensive reason was obligations at work, while the real reason was my ticket to a cumbia festival in Miami. I knock at the door. After some silence, I knock again.
Yellow light stretches across a hallway inside, followed by a crash and a groan. A dark figure stumbles through the darkness and my neck stiffens. The porch light turns on and the lock clicks in front of me. The door opens and I am looking at my old roommate Kushad.
Kushad stuck out because he was from India. He majored in math and spoke with a rolling accent, like a waltz. He did not say much, but he drank just like everyone else. With most of my roommates I had to think about not being a geek, not being a wimp, and not being an idiot. Kushad had no such requirements about my behavior. If any of the others had greeted me at the door, they would ask about my guitarrón before letting me in. Kushad acts as if everyone goes around with a massive stringed instrument slung over their shoulders.
“Matt! You’re here! Come in!”
I step inside. “I know you guys aren’t expecting me, but could I spend the night? I’ll be happy to sleep on the couch.”
“No problem,” says Kushad. He wags his head back and forth. It is neither a shake nor a nod, this trademark gesture of his which made my mind turn blank when I first met him. But later I understood this motion to mean that everything is okay. “Actually, I’m not supposed to be here,” he says. “But I didn’t get around to returning the key today. The guys have left already, so you can sleep wherever you like.”
“I’ll just settle down on this couch,” I say.
“Suit yourself,” says Kushad. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here?”
“Kate threw me out.”
“Oh, tough going. Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, it’s a bummer.”
Kushad’s eyes are creased. “Well, I’d like to stay here and get caught up, but I’m pretty tired, so I’m going back to bed.” He shuffles back down the hall and disappears. I have a drink of water from the kitchen sink as I lean on the counter. My head rocks over to the side and I almost drop my cup as I stand there, so I decide to lie down. I hit the light switch and grope my way across the room.
The middle of the couch is sunk lower than the sides, contorting my body. My muscles complain about the workout they have just had. I still cannot sleep, so instead, I think.
I got my shot at Washington, D.C. when my girlfriend, Catalina (she goes by “Kate”), offered to let me stay with her after graduation. She had gotten a job with a think tank that tries to help Third World countries. She spends her days reviewing reports about infrastructure, calculating potential economic benefits, and arguing with officials about competing projects.
Against all my expectations, I got some job interviews. During one meeting I faced a three-person panel. One of the interviewers began waxing eloquent about the organization’s logo. He said it had an “overflow of meaning,” and listed the many ways that the logo represented the organization, some of them contradictory. I said the logo reminded me of a hand-written treble clef on a piece of sheet music I saw by Carlos Chávez. I did not get the job.
I had majored in political science at Indiana University and readied myself to change the world, but living in Washington, D.C. was unlike anything I could have anticipated. Few people ever laugh there. I think owning a twenty-year-old Dart, in a land of Acuras and BMWs, was a problem for many of the locals who got to know me. In my old neighborhood of East Chicago, everyone owned old Dodges or Chevies.
I eventually found a job writing proposals for a small non-governmental organization. I followed my employer’s templates and filled in the blanks with the required research. It was the first job I cycled through while in Washington.
The beginning of the end was a cocktail party at the house of one of Kate’s friends. I should have known better, but I drank a beer from the bottle instead of a frosted glass. The crowd squeezed in all around me, and the air was frozen in a temperature-controlled maze of tiny rooms. I slipped out to the back yard, which was free of the smell of screwdrivers. I closed the door, and the loud music and talking suddenly died. I breathed in the sultry air through my nose. I took off my jacket and shoes, rolled up my slacks and slipped my feet in a backyard pool. A thermometer, nestled in a floating fixture, swayed with the waves my feet made.
At the end of the evening, Kate was silent in the car. When we arrived at her apartment, she slammed the door and said I had humiliated her in front of all our friends. “You’re just too good for us, aren’t you?”
I gazed into her lovely face. When her eyes flashed, she always reminded me of Celia Cruz. “But hon’, I thought it was the other way around.”
“This is the way Washington is,” she said. “It’s about time you got used to it.”
A few weeks afterwards I lost my third job and spent my time at concerts and in front of the television. Kate arrived home late one evening and found me watching Canciones Caribeñas on video. After an argument, she threw me out.
My guitarrón leans against the wall, settling in for some relaxation. I bought it in a pawn shop while on a lunch break with a co-worker. He was a ham radio operator looking for tube amplifiers. While he argued with a man in thick brown glasses over the price of a large black box, the guitarrón called to me from a wall of worn pegboard. It reminded me of the mariachi bands I had seen at weddings and quinceañeras. It was the biggest guitarrón I had ever seen. “Let me look at that,” I said.
The woman behind the counter struggled to get it off the wall. Caked dust slid off the instrument as she placed it into my arms. I plucked at strings that had long since fallen out of tune. I paid her $20.00 with no haggling and slowly eased it through cluttered aisles. I replaced the strings, and in the following months I learned how to play it while listening to the radio.
In the darkness of the beach house I gaze at an old picture which looks like a man playing the congas. At first light, however, I see it is only a family posing in front of a gazebo. I have had no sleep and the inside air is suffocating me. I grab my backpack and guitarrón, write Kushad a quick note saying goodbye and slip outside.
The streets are quiet. I walk only a couple of blocks before my memory stings me. The keys to my Dart are still on the stand next to the couch.
“¡Hijo de la chingada!”
I don’t want to wake Kushad again, so I decide to visit the beach and go back to the house later in the morning.
I reach the shore and a man passes by me. Out of his radio trickles a bossa nova beat, gentle as a flowing creek. His free hand swings wide of his body. As I walk on the music fades, but the beat remains in my head. I wander by a gallery featuring black velvet paintings. One shows Carmen Miranda, the top of her head gloriously decorated. Her eyes sparkle and her smile glistens.
I take off my shoes, roll up my jeans and walk onto the sand. I see retired couples hobbling by the water, interspersed by occasional runners who are gone almost before I know they are passing. My guitarrón is getting a few stares. Seagulls loiter in isolated groups, all facing the same direction. Large colorful signs flogging ice cream and saltwater taffy dominate the boardwalk, but it is the ocean that grabs my attention. Its horizon is so smooth, straight and perfect. The lazy whoosh of the surf quiets my mind. I walk along the water, but constantly stop and gaze. It is like looking into the infinite, the eternal. Above, beams of sunlight illuminate pink clouds that look like fat dancers at carnival. A big wave rolls in and soaks me. My legs are suddenly cold and sand is wedged into my rolled-up jeans. My guitarrón gets sprinkled too.
I back away from the waves and wish I had a blanket. When I was a child, we always brought blankets for our Sunday picnics in the park. We drove through city streets that were more gravel than pavement. If we arrived early enough, we could find a spot with some grass on it. My family brought food, toys and copies of Vanidades. Uncle Tony would stagger and dance with a plastic cup in his hand while my cousins and I ran around him and laughed. Grandma spoke with a pinched voice about her days in Veracruz. Mariachi music blared from radios.
Music. I was six when I joined the Cathedral Boys Chorus of Gary. My parents took me to one of their concerts. The music was a mix of Catholic and Latin American traditions. The auditorium reverberated with their harmonies, and pulsed with tropical beats, and I could not resist the impulse to stand and clap. My father laughed as he pulled me back down. At the end of the concert the director thanked everyone for coming and announced the choir was open to new members. My mother asked if I wanted to join.
“Yes! Oh yes!”
Mr. Bautista, the director, rehearsed us to the point where I could hardly stand after the bi-weekly practices. He pounded us about breathing as directed, singing with big smiles and watching for his cues. My heart thumped when his terrible temper threatened, but even at the age of six, I knew when our sound was good. After learning that I had been chosen to go on a tour through the Midwest, I leapt into my mother’s arms.
News eventually spread to my school that I was in the boys’ chorus. Gonzalo Jiménez thought it was funny.
“The Cathedral Boy Chorus? ¿Estás con aquellos putos? ¡No mames!”
My arms dropped and my face slackened as I tried to figure out what he meant. Then I snapped into a wrestler’s crouch, ready to spring. “¡Pendejo!”
I charged straight into his chest and slammed him into a wall, bonking my own head in the process. I followed up with a series of wild blows directed at his head and his body while he screamed.
The principal beat me and sent me home, but I knew that trying to ignore Gonzalo would only lead to more trouble.
The chorus sang one High Mass per month, where I learned about the power of the deity, manifest in music. I also learned the difference between the Kyrie, the Gloria and the Agnus Dei.
Besides the Masses, we performed in holiday concerts and tours. For the first part of each concert we dressed in robes and performed sacred songs like Adoramus Te and O Santissima. In the second part, we walked on stage wearing Caribbean-blue guayaberas with khaki Bermuda shorts. We sang cumbia, mariachi and salsa. I played the maracas and soloed Mexico Lindo y Querido.
I stopped chorus when I turned fourteen. I was good at school and thought about college. Grandparents, teachers and friends were telling me to further my education, get started on a career and not to waste my life. I eventually stopped going to chorus alumni gatherings. My parents, although supportive, were remarkably mute over what I should do with my future.
High above the ocean, the clouds are changing from pink to bright yellow. I sit down in the sand and rest my head on my backpack as I try to remember why I walked away from music. The bossa nova beat keeps rolling through my head like a lullaby, and I am drifting.
***
The sun blinds me when I wake. My hands wave around. My backpack? My guitarrón? Then I remember where I am and why. The skin on my face burns and feels oily. Large umbrellas have popped up. The lovely smooth horizon of the ocean still pulls at me, but this time people of all shapes and sizes are walking and reclining. Children run and scream. Grownups organize food and canopies. Few of them notice the miracle of the beautiful sea. The world is moving. I decide to join in.
I pick up my backpack and my guitarrón. On the way to the boardwalk I notice a middle-aged woman in a brightly colored dress with lots of embroidery. She is humming staccato notes and dancing in the sand as she walks.
Cars clog the streets and fill the parking lots. Customers pack into shops and restaurants. It is midmorning, and Kushad should be up by now.
When I arrive back at the house, he is at the table sipping coffee. His eyebrows lift high on his forehead as a lop-sided grin breaks over his face.
“Hey Matt! You’re back!”
“Yes,” I say. I start explaining.
“I remembered about my car keys after I left but didn’t want to wake you up—so I went for a stroll on the beach. When I first stepped onto the boardwalk I saw this guy listening to the radio. It was this Brazilian music. I couldn’t get that song out of my head the entire time I was on the beach—”
Dozens of beer bottles have crowded the counter behind Kushad. It is like being back in college, and once again I am the babbling musical idiot.
Kushad’s eyes are clear. He nudges his coffee to the side. “Ah,” he says. “Music is good. What was the song about?”
I have just come from sleeping and waking by the infinite ocean, and have had a year of detachment from school. So the sight of beer bottles versus Kushad’s interest inspires a revelation, manifest in a non-sequitur question.
“We never did fit in, did we?”
Kushad’s eyes lose their focus. They are searching for something far beyond the room. Then he bursts out laughing.
“No. I suppose not. But they still let us hang out with them, right?”
“Right,” I say. I get up with renewed purpose. “Yes. We had a place we belonged. And now I have to go.”
I collect my keys and say goodbye. Kushad and I shake hands and he wishes me a safe trip. I walk back to the service station, pretty sure that I have enough credit on my Mastercard to fuel up my tank.
I strap the guitarrón to top of my car with a string of neckties and belts which seem to be made for the purpose. Beside a closed bay door stands a phone booth and a wooden chair. I decide to call home.
With careful deliberation I depress my home number into metallic buttons and set the chair in front of the booth. My breath eases out as I sit. I lean back on the chair’s rear legs and let the phone ring. Then my heart leaps as I realize I am falling. Fortunately, the rear wall of the phone booth catches me.
My dad answers. “Bueno.”
I am hopelessly stuck in my tilted back position. My knees block my view of the street. There is nothing I can do while talking to my dad, so I force my arm to drape on the pavement as I gaze up at the ceiling of the booth.
“Hello, Dad. It’s me.”
“¡Ah! ¡Mateo! ¿Como estás?”
“I’m fine. Hey—would it be okay if I came home? I mean, like, to stay? Would you mind?”
“Claro que no. Estás bien?”
“Yeah, Dad, I’m okay. I’m out east, so it will take a while. But as long as the Dodge holds out, I’ll be home tonight.”
“Muy bien. Nos vemos esta noche.”
We say goodbye.
I pull myself up with the phone cord and stand. It will be a hot day. I close my eyes as the muggy breeze caresses my skin.
The attendant at the service station helps me push the Dodge to the gas pump. I thank him when I pay. Then I get in the car and start it. The radio comes on loud.
“¡Este es rrrrrrradio trrrrrropical!” announces the DJ. Percussion booms as I pull onto the road.
My time in Washington, D.C. has been a failure and I have lost my girlfriend. But it was never meant to be. It was like trying to play elevator music when I really wanted salsa.
I turn up the radio.